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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206413">perdition of the witch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/volturialice/pseuds/volturialice'>volturialice</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Anachronisms galore, Drowning, F/M, Lima Syndrome, Middle Ages, Plague, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, Witch Hunts, Witches, full disclosure this is based on a terrible Nicolas Cage movie, or is she?, we just don't know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:41:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,591</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29206413</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/volturialice/pseuds/volturialice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a land ravaged by disease and famine, disgraced ex-knight Jasper accepts a job transporting a mysterious caged girl to stand trial for witchcraft. But is she what they say, or is she something else entirely? Plagued by suspicion and haunted by doubt, Jasper soon finds himself in the crosshairs of the sinister forces that hunt her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Jalice Week - February 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. land of darkness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>originally written for Jalice Week 2021, Day 1: Road Trip. look, nobody specified that it COULDN'T be a dirt road in approximately the 1300s ok</p><p>in other news when I say "originally written for Jalice Week" I'm a lying liar, I actually outlined this years ago but Jalice Week kicked my ass and made me finally write it. it is very, <i>very</i> loosely based on the horrible 2011 film <i>Season of the Witch.</i></p><p>title and chapter titles from the <i>Malleus Maleficarum.</i></p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter content warnings: death, starvation, pandemics, harm to children, graphic depictions of violence, blood</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> <span class="s1">“Moreover, it may be said that the devil makes use of a witch, not because he has need of any such agent, but because he is seeking the perdition of the witch.”</span> </em>
</p>
<p class="p1">—<em>Malleus Maleficarum</em> Part I, Question II</p>
<p class="p1"> </p><hr/>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1">The two men rolled into town on a cart, and on the back of the cart was a cage, and in the cage was a girl.</p>
<p class="p1">A child, by the looks of her. A dirty little thing almost skinny enough to slip out of her shackles.</p>
<p class="p1">But not quite.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper watched in silence, a head above the rest of the ragged crowd, the sword at his hip marking him out as different even before he received the summons to the priory.</p>
<p class="p1">Their genuine need of him was evident from the sumptuous feast spread out in the prior’s quarters—spiced mutton, rich sauces, and beef so rare it was practically still lowing. Food had been scarce since the summer before the plague, when the crops first failed. Later, after the ranks of laborers had been decimated by disease, the harvest’s meager yield was still not enough to sustain the survivors, and belts tightened all over the land. On his way into town the previous day, Jasper had passed an emaciated beggar-child in a ditch, newly dead from starvation and exposure.</p>
<p class="p1">The two strangers tore into their meal with abandon while the prior picked delicately at his portion. Jasper tried to eat slowly, but found himself wolfing it down like the others after the first delicious bite—he’d been subsisting on mealy bread and rangy game for far too long.</p>
<p class="p1">Between bites, the strangers identified themselves as Felix (the big one) and Demetri (the oily one). The job, explained the prior on their behalf, was simple. Join them on their mission to escort the caged girl-child from Aberstowe to Kirkmere.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper didn’t ask what was to become of the girl in Kirkmere, or why she required a three-man escort. The man called Demetri told him anyway.</p>
<p class="p1">“She’s a witch,” he said around a mouthful of mutton, lips shiny with grease. “We’re taking her to the archbishop. To stand trial and receive his justice.”</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper didn’t ask what kind of “justice.” He had learned it was better not to ask about such things—not when his own survival depended on doing the opposite. He could hunt well enough for himself, of course, but keeping a roof over his head was another matter—no lord wanted to lodge a failed Crusader who had never been knighted. He was in no position to refuse paid work.</p>
<p class="p1">So he nodded. “Very well. I accept.”</p>
<p class="p1">Felix grinned at him from across the table, his teeth stained red.</p>
<p class="p1"> </p><hr/>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1">While they supped with the prior, a small crowd had gathered around the wagon-cage to gawk and jeer at its occupant. Felix ran most of them off with a shout, but for a few brave souls who stayed behind to beg.</p>
<p class="p1">When Jasper returned with his horse and his few possessions, the beggars were fighting over a single coin. Demetri shot him a wink.</p>
<p class="p1">The witch was curled up in the bottom of her cage, hidden beneath her great, matted mane of black hair. She didn’t stir as the wagon jolted to a start.</p>
<p class="p1">The people of Aberstowe had ceased jeering, but not gawking. They watched the cage roll out of town the same way they had watched it roll in: in hollow silence. It was a longer procession now, with Demetri in the lead, Felix driving the wagon, and Jasper as rear guard.</p>
<p class="p1">They didn’t make it far.</p>
<p class="p1">Just outside town limits, a lone figure stood in their path, a dark silhouette against the gray sky. The road was not so wide or well-maintained that they could go around him.</p>
<p class="p1">“Move,” ordered Demetri, not even bothering to rein in his horse.</p>
<p class="p1">“I don’t think I will,” said the figure. Jasper urged his horse to a stop alongside the wagon.</p>
<p class="p1">The man in the road was one of the biggest he had ever seen—if Felix slid down from the wagon, they would stand at the same height. His arms were nearly as thick as Jasper’s head; his legs like tree trunks.</p>
<p class="p1">“Let the girl go,” he ordered.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper turned to look at the witch and nearly jumped. She was standing just beside him, clutching the bars of her cage, and she was not what he had imagined.</p>
<p class="p1">She was not a child at all, but a very small woman in her late teens or early twenties. Her great, wide-set eyes were fixed on the man in the road, her little round face twisted in desperation.</p>
<p class="p1">“Stand aside, sir,” ordered Felix. “We have no quarrel with you.”</p>
<p class="p1">The man in the road glared at Felix, then Demetri. “You are liars on your way to condemn the innocent,” he snarled. He turned his scowl upon Jasper. “You quarrel with all men of decent character and principle. Now <em>let the girl go.</em>”</p>
<p class="p1">“Don’t do this,” whispered the witch. Jasper was the only one close enough to hear her.</p>
<p class="p1">Felix passed the reins to Demetri, leapt down from the wagon, and unsheathed his sword in a lazy motion. Jasper wondered how adept he was as a fighter. </p>
<p class="p1">The man in the road grinned in a way that was somehow menacing and boyish at the same time. He hefted his sword.</p>
<p class="p1">So did Felix, evidently eager to cross blades with someone his own size.</p>
<p class="p1">The man in the road lunged first, his sword swishing within an inch of Felix’s massive neck. Felix was faster than Jasper had imagined, dodging out of the way with unlikely agility.</p>
<p class="p1">But the newcomer was resourceful. He pivoted, turning his initial slash into a stab for Felix’s middle.</p>
<p class="p1">Impressive. Jasper had encountered few such skilled fighters outside the Crusades. His own hand inched toward the pommel of his sword.</p>
<p class="p1">But Felix was having no trouble against the newcomer. He had parried the first few blows with an idle strength, and was managing to dodge and sidestep everything his opponent threw at him.</p>
<p class="p1">Demetri watched the fight impassively. To Jasper’s trained eye, it seemed the newcomer had the advantage in strength, but Felix was wily and fought dirty. The newcomer would soon lose. He left too many potential openings. In a few more moves, he would be dead and they would be on their way.</p>
<p class="p1">“<em>No</em>,” cried the witch, as if she had read Jasper’s mind. Her high voice rang with agony. Jasper glanced away from the fight just long enough to look at her.</p>
<p class="p1">“Please,” she begged. She was clutching the flat slats of her cage so hard that blood ran over her fingers.</p>
<p class="p1">The back of Jasper’s neck prickled. The witch’s eyes were black. They exerted a strange pull, so that everything else seemed to narrow and fade as she sharpened into clarity.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper found himself sliding out of the saddle, his sword unsheathed before his feet hit the ground.</p>
<p class="p1">He checked Felix out of the way, and lifted his own sword to block the newcomer's blow.</p>
<p class="p1">“The fuck are you doing?” Felix bellowed.</p>
<p class="p1">It was easy to ignore him. Jasper found himself relishing the chance to fight a worthy opponent. The starving footpads of England were no challenge compared to the battle-hardened knights he had fought in Asia Minor.</p>
<p class="p1">One swing was enough to make him certain that he could defeat this enemy. The newcomer overestimated himself. His reach was not much better than Jasper’s, and his full strength, when brought to bear, would be no match for Jasper’s ruthless speed. It was easy to surrender to the fight without conscious thought—turn here, step there, slash and parry and stab without fear. Jasper would win. This he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.</p>
<p class="p1">“Please, <em>please</em> don’t hurt him,” sobbed a voice from over his shoulder.</p>
<p class="p1">The witch. Jasper caught a glimpse of her dirty, tear-streaked face between the bars of her cage.</p>
<p class="p1">The next second he saw his opening—one step, one <em>lunge</em>, and his opponent, the witch’s ally, would be dead.</p>
<p class="p1">The man, overconfident, threw himself forward. Jasper saw, as if preserved in a painting, his wide-open, roguish grin.</p>
<p class="p1">He meant to kill the man, but something stayed his hand. This wasn’t Asia Minor, after all. The newcomer’s only crime was having been taken in by the witch.</p>
<p class="p1">So instead of thrusting for his heart, Jasper sidestepped, allowing the man's momentum to carry him past, and sliced at his hamstring.</p>
<p class="p1">With a bellow of pain, the newcomer fell.</p>
<p class="p1">“<em>Emmett!</em>” cried the witch.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper drew back to watch the newly-crippled man. He had fallen to one knee as if in a mockery of chivalry and was struggling to haul himself upright, using his sword like a crutch.</p>
<p class="p1">“Let…her…go,” he grunted.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper grabbed him by the enormous bicep. His own muscles strained as he began to manhandle the stranger out of the road. Felix joined him, and together they dragged the man called Emmett from the wagon’s path and tossed him by the roadside. Felix looked at Jasper with open hostility, a beast robbed of its prey. “I had it well in hand,” he snarled.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper nodded his acknowledgement. “There was no need to toy with the man,” he said, wiping the blade of his sword. “We are tasked with reaching Kirkmere <em>with all haste.</em>”</p>
<p class="p1">Felix scoffed and spat into the dirt, but didn’t argue as he climbed back onto the wagon and accepted the reins from Demetri.</p>
<p class="p1">Emmett was doubled over, breathing heavily. A great patch of red blossomed where Jasper had sliced his thigh. Jasper wondered if he knew enough of death, of fighting, to be grateful for the mercy.</p>
<p class="p1">But Emmett’s expression was anything but grateful as he watched the wagon roll away. It was a relief to leave his baleful, accusing stare behind, let him dwindle into a pinprick and disappear around a bend. Jasper fell back into his place at the rear of the wagon.</p>
<p class="p1">When he looked up, the witch was staring out at nothing, her face a rictus of anguish, her bloody hands cradled in her lap.</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1">.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so here we go! welcome to what I affectionately refer to as "the Lima Syndrome Fic" and "the (Nicolas) Cage Fic." this story makes me nervous because it's gonna be an absolute monster—I have lots of cool ideas for it and I really wanna get it right. I hope you'll stick with it even though I will most likely take forever to update! smash that Bookmark button, thots</p>
<p>as usual, I have been @volturialice over on tumblr and ff.net. come find me if you'd like to chat Witch AU chaos sometime (or if you enjoy Twilight shitposts. I hear people like those.)</p>
<p>if you liked this fic, you can <a href="https://volturialice.tumblr.com/post/642391716672978944/perdition-of-the-witch-twilight-alice">reblog the photoset!</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. a mind which has not been corrupted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>see end note for chapter-specific content warnings</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <em>“A woman either loves or hates; there is no third grade. And the tears of woman are a deception, for they may spring from true grief, or they may be a snare. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.”</em>
</p>
<p class="p1">—<em>Malleus Maleficarum</em> Part I, Question VI</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1">That night they made camp out on the moor because there was nowhere else to stop. It was almost a relief when the sun sank below the horizon, plunging the vast, unearthly landscape into ordinary darkness.</p>
<p class="p1">Demetri and Felix were stubbornly boisterous as they passed a wineskin back and forth beside the fire, as if determined to dispel the oppressive, hostile atmosphere conjured up by the mist, the moor, and their cargo. By unspoken agreement, no one spoke of the man they had left in the ditch.</p>
<p class="p1">Until Demetri looked across the flames at Jasper and demanded, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper, who had been preparing to excuse himself and retire to his bedroll, looked up sharply.</p>
<p class="p1">He didn’t owe Demetri and Felix an answer, of course. It was none of their affair. Only basic courtesy made him reply.</p>
<p class="p1">“Smyrna.”</p>
<p class="p1">“Well, well,” said Felix, his bleary expression sharpening. “I had no idea we were in the presence of a Crusader. My apologies, Sir Knight,”he added with a mock bow.</p>
<p class="p1">“I’m not a knight,” said Jasper. Not in any way that mattered. He withdrew from the circle of firelight and unrolled his bedroll over a damp, shadowy patch of heather.</p>
<p class="p1">But even after Felix and Demetri had ceased their jabbering around the campfire and retired to bedrolls of their own, sleep did not come.</p>
<p class="p1">In the dark behind Jasper’s eyelids, Smyrna returned. It always rushed back in a confusion of salt and blood, of the jarring ache in his hands as he pushed his sword through armor and flesh, of everything moving too fast. Smoke in the air, in his throat. Screams in his ears.</p>
<p class="p1">There was something else in his ears, too—a faint whimper, the mocking echo of those long-ago cries. He opened his eyes, as if that would help him listen. Some nocturnal beast? It couldn’t be. There it was again—an abject, human sound.</p>
<p class="p1">It was coming from the witch, shivering in the cold.</p>
<p class="p1">The witch had not stirred since they’d left Aberstowe behind, except to curl up and burrow back into her thicket of hair like a little scuttling animal. It made it easier not to think about her.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper didn’t believe in witches. He didn’t believe in most things—not saints, not the Church, not God. Not after Smyrna. But neither did he particularly wish to be burned as a heretic, so he kept his mouth shut about his lack of belief. He was a coward, but he wasn’t an imbecile.</p>
<p class="p1">To think of the witch would only provoke the question: if not a witch, then who was the girl in the cage? Someone too poor, perhaps, or too mad, or too clever. Perhaps she had looked at a man who later fell ill, or visited a neighbor whose milk curdled, or helped deliver a stillborn baby. A wrong girl in a wrong place at a wrong time. His mind shied away from the word “scapegoat.”</p>
<p class="p1">But whatever she was, she was cold. Ensconced in his bedroll by the fire, Jasper could hear her teeth chattering. He closed his eyes.</p>
<p class="p1">Now it wasn’t Smyrna but the image of the man from Aberstowe, Emmett, that stuck behind them. Emmett, muddied and bleeding into the ditch where Jasper had tossed him. Emmett’s eyes following after Jasper as he rode away. Condemning him.</p>
<p class="p1">And suddenly the combination was too much. Jasper’s eyes snapped open. He threw off the bedroll, leaving himself wrapped only in his thick woolen cloak.</p>
<p class="p1">His legs carried him over to the wagon-cage. His hands unfastened the cloak from around his neck. He thrust it through the bars.</p>
<p class="p1">The girl in the cage had started upright at his approach. After a moment’s confused hesitation, she accepted the cloak without a word. Her hand curled into the fabric tentatively, as though afraid he might snatch it back at any moment. Gingerly, her wide eyes never leaving his face, she wrapped it around herself.</p>
<p class="p1">“Thank you, Jasper,” she said.</p>
<p class="p1">Strange. Jasper couldn’t recall introducing himself to their cargo. She must have heard one of the others call him by name, he decided.</p>
<p class="p3">
  
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  
</p>
<p class="p1">He woke before Felix and Demetri, when the sun was still a feeble haze just below the horizon and the sky a sickly blue-gray. Not a creature rustled, not a bird chirped to herald the arrival of dawn. The moors had a way of swallowing up sound.</p>
<p class="p1">He felt the pre-dawn chill more keenly than usual, and remembered it was because he lacked his cloak. What strange delirium of chivalry had possessed him to give it to the witch? True, it went against his nature to let a woman shiver while he stayed warm, but Jasper knew his place and his orders, and should have known when to let well enough alone. Now he would have to retrieve the cloak or risk awkward questions from Felix and Demetri.</p>
<p class="p1">The girl in the cage was already sitting upright, her feet tucked demurely under her ragged skirts. At the sound of Jasper’s footsteps, she turned, her expression fixed and inscrutable, and held out his cloak, as neatly folded as if it had just come from the laundress. As he took it back, he noticed that her little hands were crusted over with dried blood—the gashes on her palms, from clutching the slats of her cage so hard they had cut her. She had nothing in the cage with which to clean or bind them. What a fool, to harm herself so when she was cut off from all help.</p>
<p class="p1">The cloak was miraculously clean, considering the girl was filthy from head to toe. The fabric held no trace of her but a faint, watery scent, like dew on leaves.</p>
<p class="p1">Felix and Demetri were soon awake and breaking their fast with a loaf of bread and some cheese.</p>
<p class="p1">“Shall we be benevolent gaolers?” suggested Demetri at the end of the meal. He pinched off a minuscule portion of cheese and the mealy end of the bread and brought them to the cage.</p>
<p class="p1">The girl was hugging her knees, gnawing at her lower lip. “Hungry?” asked Demetri, pitching his voice in the same soft, honeyed tone he used with his horse. He held the food out to her. She eyed it for a long, skeptical moment, until hunger at last overcame fear and her skinny arm shot through the bars in a wickedly fast grab for the food.</p>
<p class="p1">Not fast enough. At the last second, Demetri whisked it out of the way. “Manners,” he scolded indulgently, wagging a finger. “Go on. Take it,” and offered the food again.</p>
<p class="p1">When she went to accept it, Demetri’s hand was abruptly too far to the left. The girl was forced to retract her arm and slide it through a different gap in the bars. By the time she did, the food was back out of reach again. Felix’s booming laugh rang out as she slumped back in defeat, glaring up at Demetri through her matted curtain of hair.</p>
<p class="p1">“Don’t be like that, Little Bird,” Demetri crooned. “We were just having a bit of fun, a bit of sport. You’re the only entertainment out here,” he added. “I shan’t take it away this time. I swear.” He held out the bread and cheese again.</p>
<p class="p1">This time when the witch lunged, it wasn’t the food she reached for. Instead her claw-like nails found Demetri’s face, raking across it from temple to jaw.</p>
<p class="p1">With a shout of pain, he flailed backward, dropping the bread and cheese into the dirt. Felix roared with laughter. The witch sat placidly back on her heels as Demetri spat curses at her, clutching his bleeding cheek.</p>
<p class="p1">“That’s enough,” snapped Jasper, bending to retrieve the fallen food. He tossed it into the cage at the girl’s feet. He was dimly aware that she seized it and tore savagely into the bread as he turned to the others.</p>
<p class="p1">“We should have been on the road an hour ago. We haven’t the time for ‘sport.’”</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
<hr/>
<p class="p3">
  
</p>
<p class="p1">When they roasted meat that night, a pair of grouse Felix had taken down with his crossbow, no one made any move to bring some to the witch.</p>
<p class="p1">“Let the bitch starve,” snarled Demetri, who had spent the day nursing the three long gouges that now caught the firelight.</p>
<p class="p1">Weary of his sulking, Jasper sliced off a portion of meat with his dagger and brought it to the witch.</p>
<p class="p1">She was mistress of herself once more, and accepted it, and a swig from his water skin, with straightened spine and a polite murmur of thanks. Gone was the vicious, clawed creature of that morning. Perhaps she thought that by ingratiating herself with Jasper, she might be lent his cloak again tonight.</p>
<p class="p1">When he returned to the fireside, Felix and Demetri were eyeing him with curiosity and resentment.</p>
<p class="p1">“She can’t stand trial in Kirkmere if she starves to death on the way,” said Jasper, and sat down to clean his dagger.</p>
<p class="p1">“What difference does it make?” said Felix. “Die now, die later. May as well starve as hang.”</p>
<p class="p1">“I’d rather hang,” opined Demetri. “Much quicker. Less messy.”</p>
<p class="p1">“If we don’t complete this task, <em>we’re</em> the ones who will starve,” said Jasper, brooking no argument.</p>
<p class="p1">But Felix had no sense of when to hold his peace. “How d’you think they’ll do it, anyway? Hang her? Burn her? Drown her?”</p>
<p class="p1">“Drowning, I expect,” drawled Demetri. “They’re mad for drownings these days. More suspenseful that way. Leaves it in God’s hands to administer justice, and lets the clergy keep theirs nice and clean.”</p>
<p class="p1">“No need to waste perfectly good wood, eh?” chuckled Felix. “Not when the river is free!”</p>
<p class="p1">“That’s assuming she’s found guilty,” said Jasper without looking up from his dagger.</p>
<p class="p1">Felix and Demetri exchanged a glance, then burst into raucous laughter.</p>
<p class="p1">“Not guilty!” howled Felix, swiping at his eyes. “Can you imagine! We bring her all this way and they turn her loose!”</p>
<p class="p1">Demetri leaned forward, the three scratches pulling at the corner of his grin, the flickering shadows warping his ruined face into a ghoulish grimace. “Listen, Sir Knight,” he said slowly, as though addressing a particularly slow-witted bumpkin. “If you knew the witch as we do, you wouldn’t entertain such thoughts. We had her a long while before you came along. We know what kind of tricks she gets up to. She’ll be found guilty. She <em>is</em> guilty.”</p>
<p class="p1">He was right, thought Jasper, even as his ears burned. No doubt it <em>would</em> suit the archbishop to find her guilty.</p>
<p class="p1">He glared coolly across at Demetri, not at all appreciative of being patronized. His fingers twitched on the hilt of his dagger. How satisfying would it be to carve up the other side of Demetri’s face, matching the witch’s work stroke for stroke? Demetri leered back as if he knew what Jasper was thinking.</p>
<p class="p1">The fire crackled, sending up a shower of sparks between them as the wood shifted.</p>
<p class="p1">“You think she’s fucked the Devil?” wondered Felix, looking askance at the cage and effectively leaching all tension from the air.</p>
<p class="p1">“Certainly,” said Demetri, flicking a stray twig into the fire. “Shall we go ask her if he’s a good lay?”</p>
<p class="p1">This sent Felix into a fresh gale of laughter, and they retired to their bedrolls in three highly distinct moods.</p>
<p class="p1">But sleep refused to come, and Jasper soon found himself sitting by the fire again, cursing under his breath as he tried to mend a tear in his spare shirt by the wavering half-light.</p>
<p class="p1">“Give me that,” came a voice from the cage.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper looked up. The witch was sitting cross-legged, skinny knees pressed against the bars, wounded hands folded daintily in her lap. She reached out with one of them, offering.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper stared. Had she been awake all this time, listening in? Something twisted in his gut.</p>
<p class="p1">“Well?” said the witch. “Shall I mend it or not?”</p>
<p class="p1">Still dumbstruck, he blinked at her. “You want to mend my shirt?”</p>
<p class="p1">“It’s very boring in here,” said the witch, with a birdlike tilt of her dark head. “And I’m good at mending,” she added. The fire was just bright enough for him to notice her eyes were brown tonight, a warm umber instead of the lightless black of the other day.</p>
<p class="p1">He crossed to the wagon and handed over the torn shirt without a word, but hesitated when she held out a hand for the needle, thinking of Demetri’s face.</p>
<p class="p1">“Don’t be a fool, Jasper,” she scolded. “What can I do, poke you to death? You have a <em>sword</em>.”</p>
<p class="p1">He gave her the needle, supposing that even if she <em>did</em> use it to scratch him as she had Demetri, his face was plenty scarred already and one more would make little difference.</p>
<p class="p1">She sucked on the end of the thread. “I’m Alice, by the way.”</p>
<p class="p1">Alice. Such an ordinary name. She smiled at him.</p>
<p class="p1">Her smile was a shock—so open, transforming her odd collection of features from alien to charming in the space of an instant. There was a gap between her front teeth. It occurred to Jasper that somewhere beneath all the dirt she might be pretty.</p>
<p class="p1">He settled down a respectful distance from the wagon, checking over his shoulder to be certain Felix and Demetri were still asleep. The witch—Alice—set about stitching up his shirt with methodical briskness. He thought she might have been humming to herself under her breath.</p>
<p class="p1">“I haven’t, you know,” she informed Jasper after a while, as if answering a question he had asked.</p>
<p class="p1">“Haven’t what?”</p>
<p class="p1">“Lain with the Devil. I’m not certain he’s real,” she confessed.</p>
<p class="p1">Small wonder she had ended up in this cage if she hadn’t even the sense to keep quiet about <em>that</em>. Jasper knew it was none of his affair what she said or did, knew he shouldn’t be speaking to her at all, but found himself saying: “If anyone hears you say that, they’ll brand you a heretic as well as a witch.”</p>
<p class="p1">“Oh, I know,” said Alice. “But what have I to lose? They’ll find me guilty whatever I say.”</p>
<p class="p1">So she <em>had</em> heard the whole conversation earlier. She sounded awfully cheerful for a condemned woman.</p>
<p class="p1">“You don’t believe in him, either,” she remarked.</p>
<p class="p1">“In who?”</p>
<p class="p1">“The Devil.”</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper didn’t contradict her, though he had seen too much <em>not</em> to believe in the Devil. It was God he had his doubts about.</p>
<p class="p1">Alice laughed, a summery spill of warmth that did not belong out on the dark and empty moor. “Must you be afraid to speak freely with me?” she wondered. “If I tell tales on you, who will believe them?” She looked her challenge at him, another laugh at his expense playing at the corners of her lips.</p>
<p class="p1">It was a fair point. Jasper sighed. “Perhaps he’s not a wicked fallen angel with cloven hooves and a pitchfork,” he admitted. “But the Devil is a vile impulse that lives in men’s hearts.”</p>
<p class="p1">“Not women’s hearts?” teased Alice, lifting his torn shirt up to catch more light. “Then where do witches come from?”</p>
<p class="p1">How could she speak with such casual irreverence of the crime she would, in all likelihood, soon be put to death for? If she was trying to convince Jasper of her innocence, she had a strange way of going about it.</p>
<p class="p1">When he offered no reply, she spoke for him again. “You don’t believe in witches.”</p>
<p class="p1">“What makes you say that?” he demanded. How had she managed to suss out all his carefully unspoken non-belief?</p>
<p class="p1">Alice shrugged. “I watched your face earlier, when Felix and Demetri were talking. You wanted them to choke on their tongues.”</p>
<p class="p1">True enough. “Didn’t you?”</p>
<p class="p1">She grinned again. “They’re the only entertainment out here,” she parroted, echoing Demetri’s taunt. Then she pulled the thread tight in a decisive knot. “There—finished,” she announced.</p>
<p class="p1">She surrendered Jasper’s mended shirt with a delicate sigh, as though wishing she could have it back to mend all over again. He examined the newly-sewn rent—it was scarcely detectable except by touch, the stitches were so tiny and neat. Impressive work, considering the lack of light. “This is skillfully done,” admitted Jasper.</p>
<p class="p1">“Thank you. I can spin and weave and embroider, too,” said Alice, in a voice more wistful than boastful. She punctuated the statement with a slight shiver.</p>
<p class="p1">Jasper unfastened his cloak and handed it through the bars again. He was rewarded with another of her shocking smiles as she wrapped it around herself, nestling in until only her overlarge eyes were visible above the edge of the fabric. “You smell of the woods,” her muffled voice declared.</p>
<p class="p1">Later he lay in the dark atop his bedroll, trying in vain not to wonder where she had come from. She could spin and embroider and weave—a tradesman’s daughter, most likely. One of meager means and little account, if the accusation of witchcraft had stuck so firmly.</p>
<p class="p1">And against his better judgment, Jasper had lent her his cloak again. No matter; it was simple recompense for her mending his shirt. One good turn deserved another. Henceforth, they would owe each other nothing.</p>
<p class="p1"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><b>cw for:</b> minor injuries, discussion of death by: hanging, burning, drowning, starvation</p>
<p>welcome back to Occult Dumbassery Hour! I did not expect to update so soon, but this chapter got a little out of hand and I had to split it into two and now it's another cute little mini-chapter. y'all can thank @flowerslut for the early release. </p>
<p>you can also thank her for convincing me to include more <i>Malleus Maleficarum</i> quotes. they're all HELLA misogynistic, so skip the very beginning of each chapter if you don't wanna read irl fifteenth-century Judge Frollo trying to justify his prejudices via wacky supernatural "receipts"</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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